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I Behind 

I the 

I "Smoke Screen"— 
I Mexico. 



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Delivered 

Before the Chamber of Commerce 

of Flatbush, New York 

by 

T. F. LEE 



■2-0 



Behind the ^* Smoke Screen" — Mexico 

THE "Smoke Screen" was used during the 
great war for the purpose of obscuring fact 
and delaying action. In a little different 
form but with the same befogging effect it is being 
used today along the Rio Grande. It hangs between 
the American people to the North and the Mexican 
Nation to the South. It obscures a question that is 
ours to answer. It adds complexity to a problem 
which demands solution. 

It is a bewilderingly composite thing — this 
"Smoke Screen" — made up of ignorance of racial 
inheritance, character and ideals — of impractical 
theories— of "watchful waiting" — of the diplomacy 
of a John Lind— of the Bolshevism of a Lincoln 
Steffens. Distilled altruism is there — political pre- 
scriptions of international quacks — healers, trying to 
fit a cure to a disease they have never diagnosed, for 
a patient they have never known. Where the 
smudge of the "screen" is thickest, are the words- 
torrents of words — volumes of words written into 
books by well-meaning but ill-informed dabblers 
who have had but the briefest view of Mexico or 
her people— who ignore or disdain fundamental 
facts and causes, to dawdle over unripe theories \ 
relating to things they have never known and could ' 
not understand. 

These are but a few of the elements which give 

3 



density to the "Smoke Screen" along the Rio Grande 
— slight wonder that the things we see behind it are 
distorted and unreal. 

In this country we have reached a point wherein 
we recognize individual habits, thought and charac- 
ter, but as a nation and a people we have not yet 
reached a stage where we will admit that there might 
be a difference in National thought, character and 
ideals. 

We measure every other people with the same 
yardstick that we apply to our own. If they fall 
short or run over length — that is their fault and we 
forever condemn them. We have never yet recog- 
nized that government is a very fair reflection of the 
character and desires of the governed. We would 
impose, willy nilly, our form of government upon 
a Hottentot tribe, a Chinese province, a group of 
Mexican Communes or the Tartar hordes of the 
Ukraine and expect an immediate, perfect and satis- 
fying fit. In other words, we have been accepting 
and reacting to the psychology of our own home 
people, but we have ignored the psychology of other 
nations. 

This may be said with compelling truth of our 
Mexican relations. As a government and as a 
people we have judged them, we have reasoned 
about them and we have planned for them as if the 
Mexican people and the Mexican government were 
like our own. Until we learn and know that the 
Mexican character, the Mexican thought-habit and 
the Mexican ideal are to us unknown quantities — 
until we realize that his social relations — his religious 

4 



ideals — his racial traits and, in consequence, that all 
of his conclusions are utterly at variance with our 
own — not until then are we even prepared to under- 
stand this problem — much less to suggest its solution. 

I went into this country nearly twenty years ago. 
I spent a number of years in the employ of the Mexi- 
can government. I speak and "think" in the lan- 
guage of the people and I am immodest enough to 
suggest to you that after years of intimate relation- 
ship with this people, after years of unbroken study 
of their character, thought-habits, institutions, gov- 
ernment and ideals, I know some of the basic facts 
from which the}^ may be judged and from which 
our relation with them may be determined' That 
is why it has been suggested that through this ex- 
perience we should be able to peer through this 
baffling screen, confront facts — look the Mexican 
situation squarely in the face. When this is done, 
when the American people know the truth, I am 
willing to leave our future government policy to 
their insistent demand. I believe in the ultimate, 
right conclusions of our people once they know facts, 
for the overwhelming power of this government of 
ours is based upon the premise that "you can't fool 
all of the people all of the time." Our strength is 
in the inevitable tendency of our majority to blunder 
through on the right side. 

About 400 years ago Cortez and a little band of 
pirates and brigands climbed up to the Mexican 
plateau, found and subdued a race of people who 
had passed from savagery to the middle stage of 
barbarism — Aztec — ^Toltec — Zapotec. They were a 

5 



numerous, sturdy and intelligent people far above 
the Red Man of the North. There were also the 
many Indian tribes. The two outstanding character- 
istics of this people were, fanatical religious beliefs 
and the practice of extreme cruelty, both peculiar to 
barbarian culture. The Spaniards settled here — ■ 
developed farms and mines — used the Indian as his 
beast of burden and intermarried with the Aztec 
class. This intermarriage produced a distinct third 
race inheriting the tyranny, the pride and selfishness, 
the moroseness and the fighting spirit of Spain — the 
vision, improvidence, cruelty and care-free hopeful- 
ness of the native. It was a bad mixture. It didn't 
guarantee much in the way of a peaceful, constructive 
partnership. 

Now follow closely: For 300 years this mixed 
race lived under a series of so-called governments — 
despotisms of the lowest governmental type, designed 
solely to suck all substance from the governed and 
to prohibit anything which might enlighten or uplift 
them; for ignorance, superstition and fear are foun- 
dation stones upon which autocracy of this character 
is built. 

At the end of 300 years these people had been 
taught that government is for the few and that the 
masses are but a means for creating and contributing 
greater wealth to the ruling few. They had been 
taught that government is a highly centralized power 
organized for the purpose of inspiring fearful, 
unquestioned obedience. They had not the dimmest 
concept of self-restraint — not the faintest glimmer 
of self-government 

6 



Then came the great accident of Mexican inde- 
pendence and out of a mass of inert, illiterate, politi- 
cal nonentities, drilled in the customs and vices of 
petty despotism, saturated with fear and supersti- 
tion, with their racial inheritance from Spaniard and 
Aztec, — tyranny, cruelty, improvidence, fanaticism — 
Mexico thought to build a Republic. 

No wonder her failure at self-government has 
been misunderstood by our people. No wonder 
when we measure her acts by our own and her gov- 
ernment by ours we reach a conclusion that is as 
unsound as it is absurd. A democratic form of gov- 
ernment can only suit a nation which has sufficiently 
developed individually and politically to understand 
and operate it. Today the vast majority of the 
Mexican people is still living in the barbaric stage 
of culture. They are ^<,% Indian and 80% illiterate. 
Six millions of them do not speak the official lan- 
guage of the country. They are as unfitted for a 
democracy as our own ancestors would have been 400 
years ago. Today if you will chip off the thin veneer 
of civilization that covers the average Indian bandit 
or "revolutionist," you will generally find, not a 
designing criminal but a savage who prefers the wild 
life of hills and woods to the comforts and well being 
of civilization provided he must accept with these 
the restrictions and discipline of civilized life. 

In no years of "freedom" Mexico has had less 
than 40 years of peace — more than 70 of war— revo- 
lution — disorder. Revolution is the normal state of 
Mexico. It could not well be otherwise because the 
bullet and not the vote is the recognized medium for 
settling political difference. It is the code of the 



country that a man who fails at the polls must fight, 
otherwise he is politically dead. There were 57 
varieties of revolution in 57 years — but nothing so 
distressing — nothing so deplorable — nothing so in- 
finitely degrading to national character — nothing so 
pitiable has ever been fastened upon a people as the 
present revolution, headed by the Dictator of Mexico 
today — self-appointed and maintained in office by a 
system of banditry in his own land and by the suffer- 
ance and moral support of our own government. 

In Mexico today there are probably 12 million 
illiterate, poverty-stricken peons — 80% of the popu- 
lation of that country. They don't know why they 
fight — they don't care to know. They have no 
special hatred for the United States or any other 
nation. They are only interested in the problem of 
existence — they are simply doing what they are told 
to do by their jefe, just as they have done for four 
centuries. They are fighting instead of working 
because that is what their master wishes them to do, 
and too, it gratifies the craving of three centuries' 
desire for loot, rapine, and the exercise of a cruelty 
that you and I can't understand. 

Carranza today is collecting 160 million dollars 
annually from men Who built industrial Mexico. He 
is taking the income from railways owned by Ameri- 
can and British citizens without turning over one 
cent to the owners or paying one nickel to the holders 
of bonds. He has confiscated, destroyed or ruined 
millions of dollars worth of property belonging to 
your neighbor and mine — American citizens. He 
has levied tribute upon the industrial enterprises of 
that country until mines, sugar mills, plantations, 

8 



lumber camps and cattle ranges are gutted ruins or 
devastated fields. Industrial Mexico is dead, — her 
railways and rolling stock are practically junk — 
every fount of income has had its stream turned into 
the loot-chest of this man. I say — from the above 
sources Carranza gathers i6o million dollars an- 
nually and 1 20 million he spends to maintain an army 
to buy for himself the distinction of being the most 
shameless despoiler this oft-ravished country has 
ever known. His people have received nothing 
from a government that has stifled education — made 
pest places of hospitals — destroyed civic buildings — 
and made of civil law and common justice a sardonic 
joke. 

General Alvara Obregon spoke to a large 
crowd of Mexican people in the Hidalgo Theatre of 
Mexico City the night of February 2d. His speech 
as reported in the Mexican newspapers contained 
these statements : 

"While justice is measured by money in our 
country it will never be within the reach of men who 
live on wages that are only enough to buy a plate of 
beans. 

"The penal colony is not large enough to hold 
the poor man who steals bread; but bandits travel 
through the streets in luxurious automobiles — fruits 
of their own systematic robberies. 

"There will be no justice in Mexico so long as 
school teachers have to live on charity, while the 
mistresses of bandits pass them, flaunting jewels." 

Revolution seems to boil up the scum — Bela 
Kun in Hungary — Lenine and Trotsky in Russia and 
Carranza in Mexico. 



A petty tyrant who stables his cavalry in the 
churches of his country — who would rather promote 
a pillaging army than a public school — who sanc- 
tions the murder, outrage and defilement of 
American women — who encourages the murder ot 
American citizens and the confiscation of American 
property — who prompts the wholesale murder of 
the clergy of his country and condones the defilement 
of scores of nuns of the religious institutions of the 
land he assumes to rule — this is the ruler of Mexico 
today — the nominal ruler, placed in his high office 
by reason of our own assistance — kept there by 
reason of our tolerance and he — Carranza — mean- 
while losing no chance to strike the hand that holds 
him in his place. 

There is no government in Mexico today as we 
know government. Villa controls a section of the 
country. Diaz another. Palaez another, and other 
minor chieftains other lesser portions; and of this 
whole territory, Carranza, and his i6o million dollars 
and his organized bandits controls the principal towns 
and such stretches of railway as are still possible to 
operate. 

"Death to the Gringoes!" has been the slogan 
with which he has rallied his so-called "generals," — 
and graft — unbelievable graft is the glue which holds 
his army loosely together. No such emotion as 
patriotism has ever swelled in his breast. 

Now then: We are side by side with a neigh- 
boring people whose government is the most corrupt 
ever known — a country whose leaders conceived the 
spirit of Bolshevism, — that now popular theory of 
taking thru fear of murder, pillage or rapine what 

10 



another may possess. For a thousand miles or more 
we touch a country whose ruler has permitted the 
wanton murder of more than 550 American citizens 
— who has winked at the outrage of more than a 
score of our own women and who has held our rights 
in such contempt that he has not offered to make repa- • 
ration for any one of these murders or atonement for 
one outrage — ^who has deliberately confiscated or 
destroyed American property running into the hun- 
dreds of millions for which to this date there has not 
been the slightest reimbursement — a ruler and a 
government which has flouted, ridiculed and derided 
our own government. 

Have you forgotten the Jenkins case? Does 
your heart swell with pride when you recall his 
imprisonment and the subterfuge thru which he was 
released? 

Do you recall that when Ambassador Fletcher 
was appointed in 1916 he waited months before he 
could go to his post on account of Mexican condi- 
tions and when he did go, do you remember how he 
was hissed and insulted in the Mexican capital? 

We are geographically side by side with this 
country and face to face with this problem. We 
can't move and our neighbor probably won't. Other 
than keeping up a sustained barrage of talk, argument 
and theory, what are we going to do? 

The Mexican problem and the Mexican situa- 
tion today is largely of our own making. The 
Mexican people from peon to Dictator will react 
only to a firmness of purpose which they can under- 
stand. They have been governed four centuries by 

11 



the fear of what may happen if they violate some 
despot's law. To them hesitancy is fear. Our 
patience is translated by them into cowardice. Our 
forbearance inspires their contempt. Naturally 
they reason this way because in all their centuries of 
experience the man who did not strike when he had 
the advantage was AFRAID to strike. The man 
who would not protect himself was a COWARD. 

My friends, it's about time for us to measure 
the Mexican character and the Mexican government 
with a yardstick which fits them. It's about time 
for understanding and truth. It's about time for the 
American people to rise up with something akin to 
indignation and demand, from our own Government, 
a policy of firmness and justice toward this bandit 
administrator of government, until with the fear of 
God and Uncle Sam in his heart he will observe the 
rights of our people, guard the lives of our citizens 
— respect the sanctity of our women — conserve the 
property rights of our people and observe the decen- 
cies which one civilized people have a right to expect 
from another. Nothing but the fear of just pun- 
ishment promptly administered will enforce con- 
sideration from this revolution-mad people, with the 
astigmatism of racial inheritance blinding them to 
our own real character, intents and purpose. 

Once let it be known that the violation of 
American rights in Mexico will be followed by swift 
retribution and those same rights will thereupon be 
respected — the American citizen will then know a 
respect and security for his life and his property that 
he has not felt for ten years. 

12 



It humiliates me to tell you that for years the 
American when in danger in Mexico has often found 
safety by declaring himself to be a German or 
British citizen and it shames me to tell you that 
during the period wherein 550 Americans were mur- 
dered in Mexico, only one German was molested. 
He was killed in a railway station, but in his case 
there were extenuating circumstances — they thought 
he was an American. 

Now let me tell you three short stories pointing 
out wherein this vital subject touches you personally 
and let me suggest the remedy : 

Last week we wrote letters to each of 2,577 men 
in our own middle west. They were just ordinary 
citizens — farmers — merchants — school-teachers — 
doctors. Some 15 years ago when our Mexican 
policy was a thing to respect and Mexico a safe place 
for American life and money, a man went into that 
country south of Vera Cruz, at the invitation of 
Mexican Government officials- He picked out and 
contracted to buy from a private owner a tract of 
rich land. He came back to the middle west and 
more than 2,500 men pooled their little savings- 
some $1,500 each, to make up a sum sufficient to buy 
and develop this tract of land. They took it over 
and reclaimed it from the jungle. They planted 
thousands of acres of sugar cane. They built a great 
sugar factory. They employed 2,000 Mexican peons 
whose social condition they lifted to a plane which 
they had never dreamed. They created millions of 
taxable wealth for that nation. With their own 
skill, courage and money they made something out 

13 



of nothing. Up to eight years ago they were giving 
to the world each year 1 1 million pounds of sugar- 
then it happened: Four of their men were mur- 
dered. Their property was destroyed. Their sugar 
fields were burned. Now this was no "soulless cor- 
poration"— not a bunch of millionaires— just 2,i;oo 
American citizens like you and me who had pushed 
into the waste lands of Mexico to carry on the work 
of the pioneer. 

The pioneering instinct is still alive in most of 
us. The same compelling force which carried our 
forefathers over the Appalachians to develop the 
middle west still flares up in the breasts of a million 
of our people today. It is the splendid, unconquer- 
able spirit that has spread a network of railways 
from coast to coast— turned waste places into farms 
and ranches — built magic cities and over them hung 
the smoke of a hundred thousand factories. It is the 
splendid spirit of construction in place of destruc- 
tion. It was that same spirit carried into Old 
Mexico by 50,000 men and women and turned to the 
building of railways, irrigation systems, power plants 
and smelters— the spirit which touched a jungle and 
made of it an oil field — which turned forests into 
lumber camps — waste lands into farms, cattle ranges 
and sugar plantations — rough mountain sides into 
cofifee groves. It was the spirit which shot into the 
industrial life of that country the first rich, red blood 
of enterprise it had ever known. I have never met a 
braver, cleaner lot of men working for an ideal than 
this group of pioneers. The American in Mexico 
was as a rule contemptuous of money. He was 
stimulated by the elixir of creating some big and 

14 



worthy thing out of the crude, raw resources of an 
industrially new country. He never saw Mexico as 
it was — his vision glimpsed it as it might be. 

Mr. Doheny was an oil man. He went to Mex- 
ico some 20 years ago to investigate the possibilities 
for oil development in that country. The British 
had drilled for it and had abandoned the effort in 
disgust. Mr. Doheny went to the Mexican govern- 
ment and said: ''If you will give me the right to 
look for oil, I will contribute all of the money, skill 
and experience needed. I will do the work subject 
to your laws, of course, and pay the tax which may 
be imposed." President Diaz agreed to this and 
Mr. Doheny went down to the Gulf coast, while 
Mexican geologists in the capitol jeered at the crazy 
gringo. He bought a large tract of land from a 
Mexican landowner and paid him for it in cash. He 
spent money like water and brought to the work the 
best skill and experience the oil fields of America 
held. He succeeded- He built refineries, pipe lines 
and invested millions of his own money. 

Carranza came into power because of our own 
government's support. He looked upon the property 
owned by the Americans and coveted it. In trying 
to take it he came face to face with the old Consti- 
tution of 1857, under which Americans had made 
their investments— a constitution, by the way, mod- 
eled upon our own. It was in his way so he tore it 
up and made a new one of his own. In Article 27 
of this new Constitution he provided that only Mexi- 
cans by birth have the right to own land in Mexico, 
or to obtain franchises to develop mineral oils and 

15 



fuels in the Republic, and this constitutional pro- 
vision became retroactive. 

Acting under this a few months ago, Carranza 
ordered all American companies to stop drilling — 
took their tools and sealed them up. YOU helped 
pay for this — you personally — for the United States 
paid a billion and a half dollars last year — $75 per 
family — because Mr. Carranza is dictator of our 
neighboring Republic, and because our Govern- 
ment's policy has not protected our sources of foreign 
supply. You and I are in a measure responsible 
because Carranza was put in power by a government 
we helped make. He is held there by the same 
power and today because of this continued policy or 
lack of it, Carranza is able to take from the American 
in Mexico anything he desires from life to property. 

Let me interject a word about concessions right 
here: The word is misleading to us. In Spanish it 
means one thing — in English another. In Mexico 
it means a charter or right to do something or to buy 
something. It is a formal permit for which you pay 
a heavy stamp tax. There is nothing free about if 
It is the popular impression in this country that a 
concession is a form of giving away something of 
value in which the public is interested, and by cer- 
tain interests this impression has been fostered. I 
have never known an American in Mexico who ever 
got anything for which he did not pay a little more 
than full value. When the men who bought land, 
opened mines, built smelters, developed oil fields 
received their concession, they got a charter or per- 
mit allowing them to spend their own money pro- 

16 



vided they put up several hundred in stamp tax for 
the privilege of so doing. 

Last year we used 60 million barrels of Mexican 
fuel oil. If those barrels had been placed head to 
head they would have reached one and one-quarter 
times around the globe. We used 300 million gallons 
of gasoline from Mexico last year. We are depen- 
dent upon this supply — even with it our shortage is 
more than 30 million barrels. It was this enormous 
reservoir of oil piped to the allied navies which made 
it possible to carry American troops to Europe — 
American food and supplies to our Allies. It was 
this oil more than any one other great factor which 
won a world war; and this we did in spite of the fact 
that Carranza did everything in his bitter pro- 
German way to prevent our so doing. In December 
and January from 2C to 4c per gallon was tacked on 
to the price that you paid for gasoline. Your dealer 
didn't do this — Mr. Carranza did — his long fingers 
reached from Chapultepec to your pocket. When 
Americans were forbidden to drill on their own 
property their old wells soon began to go to salt. The 
supply of gasoline fell off a million gallons a day. 
There wasn't enough to go around — you had to pay 
more for it. 

Where is your fuel oil supply coming from? We 
are not producing enough in this country to supply 
our own yearly demands by more than One Hundred 
Million barrels. I mean that after we have brought 
Sixty Million barrels from American wells in 
Mexico and Three Hundred Million gallons of gaso- 
line from the same source, we are still shy Thirty 

17 



Million barrels. Now, will we stop industrial devel- 
opment? Will we forsake the dream of a merchant 
marine and of a world export trade? This we must 
do unless fuel oil in vast quantity is available. We 
can hardly expect England to develop oil producing 
regions of the earth and haul the oil to us for the 
purpose of building up competing industries and 
developing a competing merchant marine, — nor may 
we expect it of any other great power. This supply 
can only be made available by fearless American men, 
armed with experience, skill and money, who elect 
to go into the deserts, jungles and by-ways of the 
earth in quest of this liquid fuel that has become such 
a vital factor of our nation's development. 

Gentlemen, I urge you to believe me when I say 
that American men and American capital cannot 
enter this field of foreign development unless our 
ancient principle of protecting American property 
rights and American life is again made a salient 
principle of our governmental policy. 

But the most pitiful case of all is not that of the 
men who formed themselves into company groups for 
united development. The pitiful case is not the oil 
man — rather it is any one of thousands of the 50,000 
Americans who took their families and their savings 
and upon the invitation of the Mexican Government 
bought little farms throughout the republic. Gentle- 
men, I do not know personally of a single farm today 
that is still being operated by its American owner. 
He has either been run off, murdered or he has de- 
clared himself to be a German or British subject for 
sake of safety. Just one little case will illustrate^ 
hundreds of others equally important. 

18 



Mary Correll went with her husband and her 
son from Ada, Oklahoma, to a little farm they had 
bought south of Victoria, Mexico. They cleared 
away the jungle and built a little home. They were 
becoming independent. Last July fifty bandit sol- 
diers rode up to their little house. They looted it — ■ 
then they held the woman and her son so that they 
were compelled to witness the murder of the father. 
Murder of the boy was then attempted, but he broke 
loose, escaped the shots and dodged into the brush. 
The mother was then outraged in a manner too revolt- 
ing to tell. Now get this: Neither the Mexican 
government nor our own offered any assistance and 
in time the woman and the boy found their way back 
to Oklahoma — penniless — homeless. Gov. Robertson 
sent a drastic message to Washington. In time the 
wreck of a woman told her story to the House Rules 
Committee — that was all — nothing was done. Only 
I forget to mention that during this time Mary Cor- 
rell's other son was serving his country overseas — 
making the world safe for democracy. Safe for 
democracy! An alluring phrase — a fascinating 
thought. But I want you to know with what earnest, 
vital meaning I speak when I suggest that the time 
has come and passed and come again to make the 
world EVERYWHERE safe for American citizens. 

One additional but compelling thought: In 
these days, when the cost of living is swelling beyond 
our ability to pay, let's get down to this fundamental 
fact. Beef is high because there is not enough to go 
around. Shoes are high because leather is scarce. 
Do you remember when you bought 20 pounds of 
sugar for a dollar? Sugar is costing you four times 

19 



that today because the supply is limited. Gasoline, 
kerosene, and fuel oil are high because the world 
today is not producing enough to supply its insistent 
demand. Because all meat is scarce the herds of 
sheep of this country have been used for mutton, the 
supply of wool curtailed and the price advanced. 
Here is the thought: United States has no more 
great cattle ranges — it does not supply its own de- 
mand. Northern Mexico is a vast cattle range. It 
is the natural supply point for half a continent. In 
the day when our government policy made life in 
Mexico safe and industrial activity possible, millions 
of cattle came to our stockyards and millions of hides 
came to our tanneries. Beef and leather were plenty 
— steak and shoes were cheap. But beef and bandits 
cannot run on the same range. Of recent years only 
straggling herds have crossed the Rio Grande. Only 
a short time since Mexico was shipping millions of 
pounds of sugar, giving one of the staple products 
of the world at a price within reach of all. This 
was before the time of Carranza. He has effectually 
changed all this and today the charred ruins of 
burned sugar mills dot his unhappy country. 

Gasoline has doubled since revolution in Mexico 
and will probably advance 20% this year,- — the gas 
and oil shortage is troubling the industrial leaders 
of this country. If our investments abroad cannot be 
protected, where will we get the oil and gasoline to 
meet our enormous shortage and what will we be 
compelled to pay for it? 

Coal famine, sugar famine, prohibitive cost of 
beef, shoes, wool, gasoline, copper and even silver — 
the question of Mexico, Carranza and our govern- 

20 



merit's policy, — these are questions that are directed 
at you. They are personal — pertinent — persistent. 
They demand an answer. The shadow of our Mexi- 
can policy is standing beside you when you buy your 
daily beefsteak — ^when you fill your flivver — when 
you bought your winter overcoat — ^when you begged 
for a pound of sugar a few weeks ago — when you 
negotiated for your $20 pair of shoes. 

In its greater aspects the danger threatens the 
existence of our merchant marine because 90% of 
the fuel oil used for this purpose and for industrial 
purposes on this Atlantic coast comes from American 
oil wells in Old Mexico. 

We are today the greatest creditor nation on 
earth, — probably the greatest export nation in the 
world. In 1890 our bulk of export was in foodstuffs 
— raw products. Today it has changed to that higher 
form of export, — manufactured products. The mar- 
kets of the two Americas should be ours. The great 
initial steps to secure this have been taken — the fos- 
tering of a merchant marine and the extending of 
banking facilities into Latin America. Our nation 
is today standing at the cross roads. It has the oppor- 
tunity to become the greatest commercial and finan- 
cial power on earth or it can slump back into the 
position it occupied 30 years ago. England and 
Germany acquired commercial supremacy through- 
out the world by sending their people into foreign 
countries with money, skill and enterprise. South 
America was developed largely by these nations and 
South American trade rightfully became their own. 
During the years from 1900 to 19 10 more than 

21 



50% of the foreign trade of Mexico came to this 
country in spite of makeshift banking facilities and 
unfavorable government policies, because 50,000 of 
our own citizens were in that republic using and 
creating a natural demand for American goods and 
teaching the native to demand them. 

The American has genius for organization and 
development. He takes the rough mold as nature 
left it and fashions from it skillful-hewn utility to 
serve the use of men. As he built railways in Mexico, 
he made markets for American steel rails, cars and 
locomotives. As he developed sugar plantations, he 
created demand for American machinery; as he 
opened farms, American implements were in demand. 
One of the most powerful stimulants to foreign trade 
is the demand which is created by our nationals 
abroad. 

In a political platform which in 191 2 helped to 
put a party in power, is to be found the following 
paragraph: 

"The constitutional right of American 
citizens should protect them on our borders 
and go with them throughout the world, and 
even Americans residing or having property 
in any foreign country are entitled to and 
must be given the full protection of the 
American government both for themselves 
and their property." 

This principle meant success in foreign trade. 
It is the very basis on which foreign trade is built; 
but the Secretary of State who came in on that plat- 
form said American citizens hounded out of 
Mexico: "From the time you crossed that river, 

22 



United States lost all interest in you and owed you 
no further duty." It was "open season" for Ameri- 
cans in Mexico. They were murdered and robbed. 
They straggled back in thousands, ruined; but — 
although the American Secretary of State had lost 
interest in them, there came a time when this great 
Government looked to Americans below that same 
river to furnish fuel oil to carry men and guns to 
France — to win the world's great war. 

And then there's another effect which strikes 
even deeper into your heart and mine: It is the 
sense of humiliation — of bitter shame which comes 
over you and me with the realization that an Ameri- 
can Ambassador may be subjected to insult at the 
hands of a Mexican Congress — that our Consul can 
be imprisoned at will by a Mexican government — • 
that our American citizens can be murdered without 
the criminal feeling the immediate force of a retribu- 
tive justice — and that American women can be defiled 
by loathsome brutes acting under the authority of the 
head of a government with whom we are theoretically 
at peace and that all this may be done — has been done 
repeatedly without rousing more than puerile, futile 
diplomatic protest on the part of our own people 
or the men who represent them. 

You are no more in accord with this policy than 
I am. Your blood tingles with the same resentment 
that I feel and your sense of honesty, justice and right 
demands that the American people through their gov- 
ernment formulate a policy of firmness and justice in 
dealing with this Mexican problem that will com- 
mand for American citizens the wholesome respect 

23 



of Mexico's erstwhile government and of all other 
governments of the world. 

Armed intervention — I do not believe that is 
necessary. Thinking men, who know Mexican char- 
acter and who have had long experience in that coun- 
try, feel the same way. It is true that for ten years 
we have led the Mexican government to believe that 
no matter what happened, we would do nothing. It 
is true that we made two abortive forays into their 
territory and by withdrawing confirmed their sus- 
picions that we were afraid of them; it is true that 
the American citizen who goes abroad today in his 
own interest or in the interest of his own government 
has a great deal to overcome before he can command 
the respect which is his due, but even this may be 
counteracted by determining upon a fixed, definite 
policy, a firm, just dealing with the outlaw element 
of a people who have visited upon us everything of 
violence, contempt, indignity — who have flouted and 
derided our government and its accredited repre- 
sentatives. 

The Philippines and Cuba point the real solu- 
tion of the Mexican problem. The Philippines 
offered many similar aspects to the case presented by 
Mexico. The Philippines were but a collection of 
tribes speaking many dialects, filled with furious 
jealousies, utterly disorganized and upset by revolu- 
tion and with no glimmer of the meaning of self- 
government. They hated Americans and despised 
any of their own who began their schooling with the 
idea of becoming of real use. We won there because 
we were right. The change in this people has been 

24 



miraculous. What was done there was done in our 
inexperience — today we might work the miracle of 
the western world in Mexico. The question is not 
one of imposing government upon an unwilling 
people; it is a question of permitting them to assume 
the first steps in self-government under a protection 
that would save the masses from the unscrupulous 
despotism of the few. 

Cubanization of Mexico is the real answer, for 
Cuba is closer example of American altruism and 
the effect of American governmental aid. 

For years Washington has dealt with Mexico's 
mockery of government as if its representatives were 
honest patriots struggling for a just cause, instead of 
the scum of a race, looting a people whom they had 
betrayed and overawed. 

Mexico will only be a breeding place for chaos, 
anarchy and bolshevism until some strong moral force 
—some outside force— reaches into that unhappy 
land, pulls together the ravelled threads of govern- 
ment, places them in the hands of such capable men 
as may truly guide and represent the real Mexican 
people and then stands back of such constituted gov- 
ernment with every force necessary to protect its own 
citizens as well as the alien within its bounds. 

In this way only can a once great people be 
restored to peace and sane living— in this way only 
can a once great nation regain its credit and a world's 
respect. But while our own and international 
thought is being directed to the Cubanization of 
Mexico, let's do the practical, immediate thing nec- 

25 



essary to protect your rights and mine, whether we 
are in Brooklyn, Oshkosh or Mexico. 

As I used to come back from Mexico on the Old 
Ward Line steamers and as we sailed up the bay and 
into New York harbor a little group of us were gener- 
ally crowded on the forward deck to get the first 
glimpse of familiar sky line — the first glimpse of a 
flag, that comes to mean so much more to the man 
who has lived outside his own country. I remember 
how a little prickly shiver would run up my back- 
bone and how a dimming mist always floated before 
my eyes as I caught the first glint of that flag on our 
own soil. It meant something that was deeper than 
home life — far deeper than any of our petty dealings 
with men, something that was elemental — compell- 
ing. In those days it meant to me safety and protec- 
tion wherever I might be. 

During the early part of the great war we kept 
out of it. Some said we were too "proud to fight" — 
others said that we were afraid to fight — that there 
was a "yellow streak" in us and a yellow stripe in our 
flag. Then we got into it. That same flag crossed 
the seas to the battle fronts of France. If the thing 
they said was true — if there was a yellow stain on it 
— the blood of 50,000 of our boys washed it out. I 
only know that when it came back it was the same 
old wonderful, clear-dyed red, white and blue that 
had always made us thrill with pride. 

Gentlemen, this same piece of bunting symbol- 
izes your protection here in New York. It guaran- 
tees that if you keep your contract with the govern- 
ment, that same government will fulfil its duty to 

26 



you. Out in Omaha that same thing is true. It 
holds true way out in 'Frisco and over in France. 

And now I'm ashamed to tell you the rest — I'm 
ashamed to tell you that down below the Rio Grande 
there's a land where that same flag stands for some- 
thing else. Bandits spit on it, trample it under their 
guaraches and say that the yellow is still there. Our 
own citizens — brave, clean men and women — follow- 
ing the same honorable, useful callings of Americana 
at home, have in hundreds of instances during the past 
few years suddenly turned the corner of the day's 
work and stood face to face with death at the hands 
of some bandit assassin. And then with simple, 
sublime faith they turned to their flag, sure of its 
protection, only to find that it stood for something 
else in Mexico. 

Ambassador Fletcher resigned last week because, 
after a life in our public service, he could no longer 
bear up under these conditions. Last summer 
George Agnew Chamberlain, our Consul General in 
Mexico, gave it up — sickened with the hopeless 
futility of it all — the horror — the blindness — the in- 
justice of it. He came here to New York and wrote 
this true story of conditions as they are, taking char- 
acters from real life for the characters of his book, 
which I hold in my hand. 

Ellerton, Digby's partner, had been captured at 
the little mine which they had developed and had 
been carried off to a jacal in the mountains. His 
finger was cut off and sent to his partner with a 
request for ransom. Ellerton was without food; his 
finger was infected, and when Dick, his partner, 

27 



reached him, the arm and body of the man were in 
a hideous condition; he was dying from gangrene. 
One of the last speeches he makes I wish to read to 
you: 

"But Dick, my friend, just remember 
that you've been listening to things which all 
of us know but which hyprocrisy can't say; 
to the tongue of death that never lies. As for 
me, something passes more than this transi- 
tory body that I tried so hard to keep clean, 
and which is so vile now, so far on the road 
to rust and putrefaction. Something else 
passes; something else dies — the faith of a 
once great country." 

You will never know just what I mean until 
some friend of yours has been backed up to a mud 
wall and murdered while those who loved him are 
made to stand and look at it. You will never quite 
understand until these things come home to you time 
after time — hundreds of times. You will never 
quite comprehend the bitter significance of it until 
you have seen thousands of your own kind — Ameri- 
can citizens, not only robbed of their material things, 
but robbed of their ideals — their faith, their belief 
and their pride in a flag and a land they have been 
taught to reverence. 

Tonight I am appealing to you, with all the deep 
compelling earnestness within me, to put yourself 
on the side of those Americans who believe in and 
who stand for the protection of the rights of our 
citizens wherever they may be. 

It isn't something new, I'm asking — it's a plea 
for the reassertion of that fundamental principle and 

28 



policy for which until recent years we have always 
stood. It's a principle that is bigger than a party 
platform — greater than the call of class or creed — it's 
the bed-rock of a democracy — it's the base upon 
which our citizenship rests. This is an appeal to you 
to bring this policy back into being — make our flag 
stand for the rights of our citizens — for their safety 
and protection wherever they may be on earth. 



29 



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